Can anyone help me?

[portia9]

I am completely new to all this and have been perusing Disney boards for days but it is just making me more confused LOL.

We are coming from Australia in April 2008. 6 of us, myself and dh and our 4 kids who will be 11, 7, 5 nearly 6 (3 boys) and 3.5 (our daughter). We will be there for 10-11 nights and plan on getting the 10 day ticket.

My main questions for now are

Is it worth having the parkhopper option with us being there such a long time? I imagine we will spend a couple of days at each park regardless so I think we might be better concentrating our efforts at certain parks on certain days.

What happens with eating at Disney when you are staying offsite? I know you can't do the meal plan but can you still book for meals and pay? Is there certain places that are "off limits" to eat?

What 5 things would you say are "must do's" while we are there?

Thank you so much in advance-I'm hoping this can clear up some of my confusion

 

[Trentmom]

I am completely new to all this and have been perusing Disney boards for days but it is just making me more confused LOL.

We are coming from Australia in April 2008. 6 of us, myself and dh and our 4 kids who will be 11, 7, 5 nearly 6 (3 boys) and 3.5 (our daughter). We will be there for 10-11 nights and plan on getting the 10 day ticket.

My main questions for now are

Is it worth having the parkhopper option with us being there such a long time? I imagine we will spend a couple of days at each park regardless so I think we might be better concentrating our efforts at certain parks on certain days.

What happens with eating at Disney when you are staying offsite? I know you can't do the meal plan but can you still book for meals and pay? Is there certain places that are "off limits" to eat?

What 5 things would you say are "must do's" while we are there?

Thank you so much in advance-I'm hoping this can clear up some of my confusion

I can help you with the food question

You don't have to be saying onsite to make disney reservation.

Yes, you can pay out of your pocket for that food..

Is this your first trip??

Must dos, hmm...do you like thrill rides,,,I will add some of those if you do:


MGM...Tower of Terror, Rock N Roller Coaster, and Great Movie Ride(not thrill)

Epcot...Spaceship Earth, SOARIN!!!!!!!, explore the countries...take your time and soak it all in,,,,it is great!!!


Magic Kingdom....Pirates of the Caribbean, Its a Small World, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain


Animal Kingdom...not a big fan of it, but Expedition Everest, Kilimanajaro Safari and Kail Rapids...


Hope somee of that helped

I love park hopper...you can spend the day at one park...go back to your hotel if not too far to relax or go offsite to eat if you like, just to take a break and then hop over to another park to see the nightime show

Which reminds me...Illumination, the night time show at epcot is amazing!!!

have fun!!!

One more thing.....to save you time waiting in time to meet Disney Characters, try and reserve a few character meals...I would recommend Liberty Tree Tavern....good home cooking.....Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale


Chef Mickey...a nice buffet.....Mickey, Donald, Goofy....I forget the other characters

Since you have a little girl...you might want to do a princess meal...Akerhus in Norway is nicfe...if you don;t like exotic food, you can do the breakfast...

 

[portia9]

Thanks so much. Yes this is our first trip to Disneyworld. We did got to Disneyland Paris around 7 years ago but that is nothing compared to Disneyworld I suspect

 

[Trentmom]

never been to disneyland Paria, but Disney World is so different from the rest.

Have you already booked??

If not, have you thought of staying on site??

If you are looking for cheap, you can get a family suite at the Music Value Resort


You wont need to rent a car, if you don;t want to, and can just take buses and monorails and boats everywhere..

You become completely submerged in the magic that way and don;t have to see the real world until it is time to leave.

I have stayed offsite before, and to me, not offense,, takes a little bit of the magic away..

 

[Siouxstone]

Welcome to the Dis! It can be totally overwhelming, huh? The boards are excellent, but you might want to spend some time at the DIS home site to help with planning. There are other sites such as AllEarsNet.com that can help. Then if you have questions, everyone here loves to help.
As for staying off-site, you absolutely may eat anywhere your money takes you! Even if you pick a restaurant at a resort such as Animal Kingdom Lodge, you just tell the security guard and they will give you a pass for usually 3 hours or so. Try to have your confirmation numbers ready, but I have never been asked.
As for the Hoppers, I find that the longer we are there, the less important it is to Hop. I used to think I would always buy Hoppers, but when I planned out our next trip in September, I realized we didn't need them. So, I saved a few bucks and got reservations for another character meal! If you are not sure, you can always go for the base ticket and upgrade to Hoppers!
As for 5 things you can't miss, I can give you 3: Illuminations at Epcot, Fantasmic at MGM Studios and Wishes at Magic Kingdom!
I hope this helps! Have fun planning!

 

[Cruz91]

Have Fun!!!!

I am completely new to all this and have been perusing Disney boards for days but it is just making me more confused LOL.

We are coming from Australia in April 2008. 6 of us, myself and dh and our 4 kids who will be 11, 7, 5 nearly 6 (3 boys) and 3.5 (our daughter). We will be there for 10-11 nights and plan on getting the 10 day ticket.

My main questions for now are

Is it worth having the parkhopper option with us being there such a long time? I imagine we will spend a couple of days at each park regardless so I think we might be better concentrating our efforts at certain parks on certain days.

I just put this in another board, but I'll put it here too. If you're unsure about the hopper, you can just buy base tickets and upgrade to hoppers at any time you decide you want them. You would just have to pay whatever the difference was originally. For example - if a 10 day base ticket is $300, and a 10 day hopper is 450 (those are made up numbers, not sure what they run now), if you decide on the 5th day you want to hop, you would have to pay $150 to upgrade your original $300 ticket to a hopper.

I think you'll want the hopper, though. Once you see each of the nightly shows at the other parks one time, you'll end up spending the rest of your nights back at MK for Wishes!

What happens with eating at Disney when you are staying offsite? I know you can't do the meal plan but can you still book for meals and pay? Is there certain places that are "off limits" to eat?

You can certainly make ADR's for any disney restaurant even if you're off-site. We have three trips in the last year and a half, all off site, all packed with ADR's. Be sure to book yours 180 days out - especially if you want to do one that is very popular (like the Cinderella breakfast in the castle). They book up quickly. The number is 1-407-WDW-DINE (yeah, I have it on speed dial in my cell too)

What 5 things would you say are "must do's" while we are there?

Those five would be different for every member of your familiy, let alone the opinions on here! I would strongly recommend buying one of the books like Unofficial Guide or something. It's $20 (or whatever it costs) well spent.

Thank you so much in advance-I'm hoping this can clear up some of my confusion

 

[dougsmom98]

We have been several times and we didn't hop until our 3rd trip. Honestly I don't think it is worth it especially if this is your first trip. It costs quite a bit more money to hop. If we didn't originally buy the hopper, we would be fine with only going to one park each day. Like another poster mentioned you can upgrade if it is driving you crazy being stuck in one park each day. I am guessing you will have so much that you want to do in each park you will just want to spend an entire exploring for the entire day.

We also stay off site when we go. We usually just eat counter service when we are there and eat breakfast and dinner off site because it fits our budget a little better. There are no places that are off limits to off site guests. If you want to eat at a table service restaurant, you may want to make advanced dinner reservations, ADRs, as soon as you are able to. In order to do this though, you will need to plan out which parks you will be in each day so that you can figure out which table service restaurant you want to eat at based on where you will be. Before you can figure out which park you should go to on which day, you will want to determine which park has Extra Magic Hours, EMH, and avoid those park on those days. This is a perk for on site guests and they get to enter the park earlier or stay later than guests staying off site. So, off site guests might want to avoid the parks on those days since the parks are generally more crowded on those days. We went to a park on an extra magic hour morning once when we stayed off site and we will never do that again. It was so crowded and lines were super long and we were there as soon as the park opened to the general public.

Good luck planning your trip. Read as much as you can and ask questions on these boards and you will be fine.